


Heavenly bodies, etc.

by pleasebekidding



Category: Supernatural, Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, M/M, Oral Sex, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 18:08:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1236091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasebekidding/pseuds/pleasebekidding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just before Alaric could die in the tomb, Castiel pulled him out of the world and gave him a new life.<br/>He's the strangest being Alaric has ever encountered, and Alaric likes it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavenly bodies, etc.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VervainAddict](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VervainAddict/gifts).



> In memory of Justiel.

It’s not a good way to die. Really, a good way to die is old, and surrounded by family. Meeting your own legacy in the eye. Alaric has no legacy, but he has done his best to keep the people he loves alive.

And it’s far from the worst way to die.

Sitting on the cold stone floor of the crypt, making the last decision he’ll ever make, Alaric tells himself this over and over. At least I’ll never be a monstrous, unkillable vampire. At least I die knowing I am human, right up until the end.

Damon’s shoulder brushes against Alaric’s and he adds: _at least I don’t die alone_.

There are things he should say and doesn’t; his tongue feels so heavy, his lips won’t cooperate. They should say things, to each other. Alaric should create individualized messages for everyone he loves.

Alaric’s eyes flutter shut. The magic and the sedatives, together, maybe. He appears to be crying. Doesn’t matter. Alaric doesn’t care. Damon won’t care either. Still he wishes Damon would reach for him.

It’s cool. They’ve never been quite like that.

Alaric feels his head begin to tip forward.

And there is a terrifying, dizzying sensation, falling, though not falling; swept, then. That seems right. Swept, through air. Speeding.

There is a hand with a tight grip over Alaric’s shoulder. It burns.

There is the calming sensation of feathers over Alaric’s body, over his head. Surrounding him.

There is a low, rather gruff voice that says “sleep”, and then there is nothing at all.

 

**

 

When Alaric wakes, it is in stages.

First, he notices that he is not actually in any pain, or nowhere he can remember having been in pain, anyway; his head is fine. The hungry, low ache in his teeth and gums is gone. The only pain is over the saddle of his shoulder, and it’s not the searing it was earlier. A low, dull ache.

Not so bad.

He is lying with his back to someone’s chest, their arm slung over his body, secured to his ribcage. It’s a nice arm. Unfamiliar, though. It feels like a strong arm, capable. Strange day all around. Since the last thing he can remember, Alaric was dying in a tomb.

Alaric takes a long moment to ask himself if he feels like a vampire, and decides, no. Not a vampire. Because the sun is warm, washing over him. He can almost smell it. No flames.

Not a vampire.

There’s a gentle breeze, too. Alaric can actually feel it shift the hair on his body.

The hair. On his _body_.

Which means Alaric is lying naked, outside somewhere, with an unfamiliar arm around his Naked. Body.

That’s the rest of the way awake, then. Alaric starts to struggle, but the arm holds him down. With little apparent effort. The arm doesn’t fight back – it is simply immoveable. Alaric is near panic and about to start shouting, when he is patted on the head – twice, and with a little too much vigor – and a voice, a low grumble, says, “There, there.”

“Let go of me,” Alaric says.

“Certainly,” the voice answers, and then the body behind him seems to vanish, and Alaric falls back.

Alaric sits up, as soon as he is able, and draws his knees up. For modesty’s sake, he supposes, though the man whose arms he woke up in has no doubt has had the opportunity for a good long look by now.

“I have observed people sleeping like that before,” the man says. “Perhaps I was mistaken. But it seems to provide a degree of comfort.”

Alaric supposes it does, though perhaps not in combination with outdoor nudity and a fully clothed stranger. Not after the day – no, the week, the _month_ Alaric has just had. He figures, though, that he maybe won’t argue. Perhaps not a good idea to antagonize the only person in sight.

Alaric takes a breath, and tries to make sense of the new reality. He’d been so sure death was the end. A real death, with no ring; he thought it would be just that.

The sun is in his eyes. Alaric puts a hand up to shield them.

“Oh,” the man says. “Yes. I can help with that.” He takes an awkward sideways step until he is standing directly in front of the sun.

It makes a halo of light around him. Does tricky things to Alaric’s eyes. For a moment, Alaric thinks he sees the outline of wings. “You want to, uh, lend a guy your coat?”

The man looks puzzled. He wrinkles his forehead, looking around. “Who?” he says. “There’s no one here but us.”

 _Ass_ hole.

“Your trench-coat. Can I borrow it?”

The man cocks his chin. “For what?”

“Dude. I’m naked here. Don’t wanna scare any woodland creatures.”

“Ah,” the man says. “Clothing.”

There is another disorienting moment, and that same sensation of feathers. And then suddenly, much less nudity. Alaric looks down.

He is wearing a suit pants and jacket, shiny black shoes. A white button-up shirt with the top button undone. A necktie, loosened, and poorly tied. And a camel-colored trench-coat.

In short: he is dressed identically to the man standing in front of him.

 “You, uh…” Alaric nods, perhaps a little manic. “You dressed me the same you, huh?”

Alaric is not sure whether to be more confused by the fact that they are now dressed like partners in a buddy cop drama or the fact that he is now clothed. Which means the man… is not a man. Maybe he should have twigged to that a little earlier. When the man was suddenly not cradling him like… that.

“You said you liked the trench-coat. I’ve always thought of it as a whole outfit.”

Didn’t exactly say he liked the coat, no, but okay. “Well, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but where are _my_ clothes?”

The man looks a little puzzled, though not hurt. “I expect that they are in your wardrobe, where you left them. Some might be in a laundry hamper.”

Alaric climbs to his feet. “Okay,” he says.

They are standing at the edge of a forest. A remarkable number of wild flowers grow in the lush grass. About twenty yards away is the edge of lake. The surface barely ripples, at first, and then a fish leaps out, flips in the air, and falls back again with a splash.

“Where are we?” Alaric asks. “We’re no place near Mystic Falls. It’s… beautiful.”

The man shakes his head, and shrugs. “It’s not a real place.”

Alaric feels his shoulders fall. “Damon,” he says. “Is this Damon giving me a dream?”

The man scrunches his forehead. “Dream?”

“Rainbows and rolling green hills? Because seriously, Damon…” Alaric looks to the sky. “Not really my thing. A bar. The library.”

He remembers his eyelids feeling heavy, and just drifting shut, there on the cold stone floor of the crypt. Surely Damon wouldn’t have given him a naked dream with a…

Something. Especially a something that talks like it learned to from a book.

“I am afraid your Damon isn’t responsible for this. But if you would prefer a bar…”

And then it’s a bar. Alaric jumps. It looks like… imagine a bar. That’s what it looks like. Dark wood panels and shiny taps. Rows of liquor bottles. A mirror behind the bar, and a tall, sad-faced bartender with a dishtowel slung over his shoulder polishing glasses and gazing at nothing, standing and wondering what happened to his dreams.

The man taps Alaric on the shoulder, and points to a wall. “I put that there.”

Alaric turns. The sight before him is the only thing that distracts him from the strangeness of having been tapped on the cheek. The only thing about this that doesn’t look exactly like Plato’s ideal-type bar is that one wall is, yes, a library.

Well, he never asked for the library at the Salvatore boarding house.

Alaric thinks for a second he should ask for a tiger. Or one last go-around with…

The bartender eyes Alaric. And since nothing makes sense and booze seems like a really good idea and there don’t appear to be any rules, in the world, any more, Alaric asks for a bottle of bourbon.

Glasses appear (of course they do) and Alaric pours drinks.

“Are you a witch?”

The man’s eyes glimmer with a hint of real amusement. “No,” he says. “I am Castiel. I am an angel of the Lord. And you are Alaric Saltzman, and I have pulled you from the jaws of death.”

Alaric smiles. Only a touch. He looks less amused than… Castiel does, he suspects. “An angel.”

“Of the Lord.” Castiel holds his hand out to be shaken. When Alaric takes it, Castiel smiles, broader and broader. “I haven’t shaken hands with anyone in some time. I had forgotten it felt so nice.”

He keeps shaking.

Alaric knows quite a lot about the supernatural; vampires, obviously, but werewolves, too, witches. Ghosts. Hybrids (werepires, Damon called them sometimes, when he was in the mood to make a bad joke). One thing he is reasonably sure of: no such thing as an angel and if there is, he certainly doesn’t stand with a cracked smile on his face, shaking your hand for five minutes.

Of course, he can’t help but notice Castiel’s big blue eyes, and the beautiful tilt of his lips; but Alaric tends to notice such things, even when the world is ending on him.

Besides. Angel. They’re probably all hot.

“An angel,” Alaric says again.

“Of the Lord.” Still shaking.

“Can I have my hand back?”

Disappointed, Castiel withdraws. “Certainly.”

Alaric sips his drink. It is… not bourbon. It’s not whiskey of any stripe. Not alcoholic, either. Cold tea? “What is this?”

“Oops,” Castiel says. “Try again.”

It tastes like bourbon, now, and it’s better. Excellent, actually, tastes like honey and apples. Last drink. No point in arguing with an angel. Alaric supposes it’s the one supernatural creature you don’t see until you die.

“So.” Alaric finishes his drink. The glass is full again, and he has not poured from the bottle. “Are you taking me to heaven? Or the other place?”

Alaric’s moral compass has never pointed quite north. He supposes he should be grateful for the drink and get ready to take his lumps.

Castiel furrows his brow. Leans his body towards Alaric’s, and taps him in the centre of the sternum. Castiel is very into touching. Patting. As if he’s seen it done from a very great distance, or read about it somewhere. “Not dead,” he says.

None of this makes any kind of sense. Alaric shakes his head. “But I’m not a vampire. I mean, I died, I didn’t finish the…”

Castiel nods. “You don’t need all the details. Suffice it to say that your case was examined and… we’ve decided to keep you. A while longer.”

“Keep me.”

“Yes.”

“My case?”

From nowhere Castiel produces a manila folder. “Alaric Saltzman. Born November twelve, nineteen seventy-eight to Edward and Dianne Saltzman. Married. Wife Isobel now a dead vampire. A vampire, that is to say, who is dead. Not running around and killing people dead. Dead-dead. Forever.”

Castiel apparently thinks he is explaining. Alaric nods. “Yes. Thank you. For the reminder.”

“You are welcome. I would have imagined that would be a hard thing to forget, though. A dead vampire wife.”

And _is_ he an asshole? Or does he just have no concept of sarcasm?

“Guardian to Jeremy and Elena Gilbert. Best friend and occasional lover is also a vampire. Damon Salvatore. Best not tell Dean that. Sam will understand. Best not tell him either though. He over-shares.”

“Lover?” Not exactly that. Also, “who’s Dean? Who’s Sam?”

“You’ll meet them soon enough. You recently died five times in reasonably close succession. Almost turned into one of those other vampires.”

“Other vampires?”

“Never mind.” The manila folder is gone. “Supernatural war has seen the number of hunters on earth dwindle. I plucked you from your body in Mystic Falls just in time.”

Alaric feels tired.

It’s not that he wanted to die. He didn’t. But he had wanted to rest, he supposes. Alaric leans his elbows on the bar. No different, he supposes, from all the other times he has died.

“So you just drop me back in Mystic Falls.”

Castiel begins to pat Alaric’s arm. Over and over, in a perfect rhythm. Pat-pat-pat-pat.

“What are you doing?”

“Offering comfort.” Pat-pat-pat-pat. So that’s what it is.

“So when do we leave?”

“You’re not going back to Mystic Falls. Hence the comfort. I know you have friends there. You can’t see them again.”

Alaric studies his hand. It should wear a ring. Onyx and ancient. “I can’t.”

“No.” Pat-pat-pat-pat.

“Thanks for the… comforting. You can. Stop now.”

Castiel withdraws his patting hand and takes another sip of his bourbon. “I should make whiskey more often.”

Alaric is still processing what he has heard. Delaying acceptance as long as he is able to. “And incidentally, we weren’t exactly _lovers_.”

“Feel free to select another term. I was merely implying you had an ongoing but casual sexual relationship.” The manila folder is back. “What shall I write?”

Yeah so actually lovers sounds fine. Alaric indicates the file should go. He doesn’t like that there is a file. He hopes, in the way he has learned to do, that the file doesn’t exist outside of Castiel’s imagination. “So where are you taking me?”

“For now, Montana.”

“And once I’m there, you’ll what? What happens if I find a car and drive to Virginia?”

Castiel smiles. “Maybe you should have kept that plan to yourself.”

“Wasn’t so much a plan as…”

“You’ll end up in Montana. If you try to get to Mystic Falls. You will find yourself where you are needed. Your part of the fight for Mystic Falls is done. You must accept that.” Again the patting. “You’re a part of something much bigger, now.”

“And when do we -”

Alaric doesn’t get to finish the question, because there is the sound of great wings beating, and he is suddenly in a small cabin in, yes, he doesn’t doubt it; Montana.

“This is the home of Bobby, formerly of Rufus,” Castiel says. “Hunters. Both are deceased and currently residing in heaven. There is food in the kitchen which you may eat. There are files on the table I would like you to consider. I will return.”

And this time, because it is night, and because there is a flash of something which is not quite lightning but not-quite not-that, either, Alaric sees them almost distinctly; or the shadow they leave behind. Great wings. There is a sound, again, like the air is full of birds.

And Castiel is gone.

Alaric feels a shiver. He wants to touch the wings. Can imagine what they would feel like against his hand. Strong. Heavy. The flesh and feathers shifting as Castiel moves them. Though Alaric has barely seen the shadow of them, as if a shadow of nothing, he feels certain there is something there to touch.

Maybe, he thinks, this is just a very weird dream.

Alaric explores. The cabin looks as if it has been occupied by men and men only, since the moment it was built. Log walls. Everything very sparse and functional. An overstuffed red couch seems the only concession to comfort.

There are a lot of books. Some of them look as if they are falling apart, and others look far too new. Replicas. Alaric slips a folder off the shelf. Photocopied pages from a spell book.

He wonders if anything in here could help them, in Mystic Falls.

Mystic Falls.

Alaric crosses to a small telephone table. There will be no line, of course. If ‘Bobby’ is dead, of course it’s going to be disconnected. He lifts the receiver.

A line. Excellent.

Amazing how hard it is to remember a phone number when you only ever hit redial. Still, Alaric summons Damon’s number, with a little effort, and before long, it is ringing.

“Hello, Alaric,” comes a low, stern voice.

“Damon?”

“Castiel.”

Alaric narrows his eyes. “Why do you have Damon’s phone?”

“I don’t.”

Alaric slumps into a velvet-upholstered chair. He ignores the pile of papers on it and just sits. Understanding. “I can’t even call them?”

“They are mourning you. It would cause chaos in their lives.” Castiel is silent. “If you want someone to talk to there is a fridge magnet with the phone number of a very nice lady called Monique. Call her and ask her what she’s wearing. She’ll guide the conversation from there.”

And also, Alaric just got told by an angel to call a sex-talk phone line. In a voice which bore no trace of sarcasm.

The fridge is full of beer, but the top shelf holds, oddly, a variety of take-out. Sushi. A tray of lasagna, and two buckets of what looks like Korean barbecue. A large plastic container of curry.

Alaric drinks a six-pack and eats some of the barbecue cold, before collapsing onto the couch to sleep.

 

**

 

In the morning, it takes Alaric a long time to remember where he is. When he does, he groans.

“Fuckin’ _angel_ ,” he says, to the ceiling above the couch. And sits up, and looks around again. The cabin is slightly less depressing by daylight.

The bedroom is small, but serviceable; still, Alaric doesn’t think he could sleep in one of the beds. He’ll manage with the couch for a while. Castiel can’t be planning to keep him here forever.

Can he?

In the shower, Alaric strips off the clothes, realizing as he does that he is going to have to at least have a look in the wardrobe, see if there is anything that will fit him. He looks in the mirror.

“The fuck…?”

There is a bright pink-white scar – it looks like a burn – in the very distinct shape of a handprint, over Alaric’s forearm. It is strange to touch. Slightly painful, though not as painful as it should be.

Castiel’s handprint, he supposes. Literally pulled out of the world. Literally.

Alaric feels a pang. In Mystic Falls they are mourning him and no doubt fighting Original vampires, as well. He should be there.

(Still – and he hates himself for thinking it – it’s nice to imagine he won’t have to fight, for a little while. This isn’t the first time Alaric has lost everything and under the circumstances he doubts it will be the last time. He can survive this; Alaric can survive anything.)

He stands in front of the mirror for a long time, staring at his shoulder. Running the pads of his fingers over it. Finally he shakes his head, and runs the shower. It is good, hot water, though with very little pressure; and it is nice to feel clean. He finds ancient, faded Lee jeans in a chest of drawers which are only a little too big, and layers shirts and sweaters until the air doesn’t bite.

The best thing about this cabin is the verandah which juts out over a slope. Trees and nothing else to see for miles. Alaric makes coffee, cowboy coffee, his father used to call it, by boiling up coffee grounds in a saucepan. It isn’t particularly good but it is strong, and Alaric sits on the verandah a long time, sipping at it.

The files, then.

Alaric sits on the couch with a short stack of the files and another cup of coffee, and begins to read. He is soon so engrossed the coffee goes cold, there in the mug. Alaric’s intention had been to take notes as he read but instead he finds he just turns page after page, newspaper reports, witness statements, pages torn from the freaking bible, annotated with handwriting that brings Damon’s beautiful cursive to mind.

This is the rabbit-hole. Or maybe it’s a dream after all.

Werewolves and vampires and ghosts, Alaric can cope with. But.

Demons. Something called a leviathan that can eat a person whole – and looks human. (Where does a person fit another whole person? For the purposes of digestion? And how big are their mouths?) Shapeshifters and poltergeists and a possessed train, of all the ridiculous fucking things.

It’s nearly four in the afternoon when Alaric realizes he is starving, and also sort of generally terrified.

Castiel has left no instructions. What Alaric is supposed to be doing with all of this he has no idea.

Alaric dials Damon’s number again, expecting to get Castiel. Castiel doesn’t answer. It’s an answering machine, this time, or its celestial equivalent; “Hello, Alaric. You haven’t reached Damon’s phone. There’s a television you can use, if you know how to fix an electrical plug.”

Maybe angels are just dicks.

Still, Alaric really wants to touch those wings.

Alaric can’t just read and read and he has no one to call, and no one to speak to, so he explores further, over the next three days, and starts to wonder how long he can really keep sleeping on the couch. He wears the clothing from the wardrobe, vaguely glad there is no one here to see him; everything is too big, and the pants are hemmed to high for him. Also, it’s all quite musty.

There is a basement, downstairs. Terrible stains on the ground that Alaric thinks might be blood, until he notices they are really black; not the black of dried blood but a real, oily black. The walls are rough-hewn stones set into concrete. Alaric suspects the whole house was built by hand. The basements hold mainly tools, and weapons, but there is also an ancient shelving unit which holds, incongruously, preserves. Peaches and apricots mainly.

He cleans, a little. Scrubs at the stains with a borax solution (there are gallons of the stuff in the garage) and opens the windows to let the air circulate. The windows have been painted shut, so this takes some time.

It is slightly less dungeony, now. With a camping bed it would make a tolerable bedroom.

Alaric goes for a long walk. It’s a pretty area, trees and shrubs. The mud is thick on the ground; there’s been a lot of rain, but the sun is out today. Alaric finds a stream, and sits on a large rock, snapping a twig into smaller pieces and throwing them into the rushing water.

“Hello, Alaric.”

Alaric does get a moment’s warning. It’s the sound of wings in the air, but there is nothing to see but a man in a trench-coat, wearing a strange expression, and with a little strawberry jelly on his lip.

“You’ve got…”

Castiel sends his tongue questing for the jelly. “I had a donut,” he says.

“Oh.”

“After a killed a large contingent of lesser demons.”

“I see.”

“I brought food.” Castiel frowns. “Not here. I put it in the cabin. And plenty to drink. A good deal of alcohol. Sam and Dean will be here in the next day or two. Dean also likes to drink a lot of alcohol.” Castiel nods, gazing across the stream to the woods on the other side.

“Sam and Dean…?”

“Other hunters.”

“I gathered that much.” Alaric shakes his head. “Castiel…”

Castiel looks to be preparing to leave, but he sits next to Alaric on the rock, instead. It’s not a large rock. But angels, Alaric is quickly learning, or at least this angel, don’t have a lot of respect for personal space.

Castiel half-leans against Alaric, waiting for him to speak. It is a strange sensation. Castiel seems too heavy. It’s nice, though. Equally: it reminds Alaric of how utterly alone he is.

Alaric bumps pushes back against Castiel, gently. “What am I doing here?”

“Reading files. Eating meals. You should aim for three a day. Sleeping, at night.” Castiel nods.

“You’re very… literal.”

“Thank you.”

“That…” Alaric shakes his head. “What am I _supposed_ to be doing?”

Castiel thinks.

“If there’s a fight, you know, point me at it. I’ll fight.” Alaric shakes his head. “But I’ll lose my fucking mind if I have to stay here by myself forever. I need something to do.”

Castiel nods. “You have something to do,” he says. “You’re healing.” He turns, just enough to catch Alaric’s eyes.

“I’m not injured.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Castiel places his hand over Alaric’s shoulder, straight over the scarred handprint there, and tightens his grip, for a moment; and then he is gone, only the beating of wings evidence he was ever there at all.

Late afternoon the following day Alaric sits on the verandah with a beer and a battered copy of _Dracula_ , enjoying the quiet sounds of the insects in the trees, and wondering if he’s finally worked out what sort of healing he’s supposed to be doing, when the door of the cabin flies open.

Alaric whirls around, reaching for the knife he tends to keep nearby, but it’s nothing that needs killing; a couple of guys, presumably the hunters, Sam and Dean.

Alaric climbs to his feet and steps back into the cabin. “Uh,” he says. “Hi.”

 

**

 

Every muscle in Dean’s body is screaming for a long fucking break and a whole lot of booze and some decent food. He grabs his duffle, and Sam grabs his own, and Dean lifts a couple of brown bags full of groceries. “Get the pie, Sammy. If it gets squashed I’m blaming you.”

Sam rolls his eyes, but picks up a cherry pie from the back seat without a word. It’s been an irritable couple of days and no one to distract them from each other for far too long. Three standard salt and burns, though the poltergeist was less than fun. Sam exorcised an entire family in Wyoming and they all survived it but it still makes Dean feel a little sick, seeing Sam do his thing. Sam fumbles the key, and quickly they discover the door is actually unlocked.

They put everything on the ground, silently. Sam pulls his gun out, pushing into the cabin. Dean pulls Ruby’s knife out from it’s sheath on his belt. They push through quickly. No one there, until the door to the back porch which looks out over the valley opens, and a man steps into the cabin.

He clears his throat, looking sheepish. “Uh. Hi.”

Dean starts demanding answers before he has time to think. “Who are you? What are you doing here? How did you find this place?”

The stranger puts his hands up. Placating. A fan of Chuck’s, maybe. Fuck. How did he find the cabin? A demon, probably. The wards must be disturbed. Or…

Dean points Ruby’s knife with some precision. “You know I can kill you with this, right?”

“I imagine you could. I’d rather you didn’t.” The stranger slumps, a little. Demons can act, but he does look oddly vulnerable and human.

Dean curls his lip, viciously, because yes, demons can act. “I mean, you’d be really dead. Not sent back to hell. Actually dead.”

“Never been to hell,” the guy says, though he doesn’t look convinced this is entirely true. “But I’d still rather no one… Castiel didn’t tell you I’d be here.” It’s not a question.

“No. How do you know Castiel?”

The guy sighs. Still rooted to the spot. He shakes his head. “Maybe you could put the weapons away? I’m not armed. You’re Sam and Dean, right? How would I know that?”

“Everyone who’s anyone knows our names,” Dean says, reaching into the pocket of his jacket. He pulls out a plastic water bottle and throws it. “Drink that.”

The guy catches it, mid-air. “Drink…?”

“Holy water.”

The guy shrugs, and drinks. Dean puts Ruby’s knife in its sheath and pulls another knife. “Silver,” he says. “Cut yourself with it.”

Sam tenses, behind him, like he thinks this a mean fucking thing to ask, but Dean ignores him.

Guy looks tired. He shakes his head. It looks less like a ‘no’ than a _fuck, this again_. He steps forward to accept this knife, and, bracing himself, cuts into his arm.

He doesn’t smoke or burn or scream; he just looks sort of miserable, and like a guy who just hurt himself. Dean cocks his chin.

“Castiel really bring you here?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s your name?”

“Alaric. Saltzman.” The guy crosses to the kitchen to rinse his arm. Dean feels almost bad but he is so fucking tired and pissed he can’t feel very bad. He tugs on Sam’s sleeve and the two of them go out the front door again, picking up their luggage and grocery bags, Sam very careful with the pie. Dean frowns, pausing. “You think he’s for real?”

Sam shrugs. “Stranger things, Dean.”

Back inside, Sam and Dean put their things down. Stretching across the cabin. It feels deliberate, reclaiming a space that feels strangely violated. The guy takes three beers from the fridge, and a big tub of curry, naan bread wrapped in foil. “So which is which? Or do I just call you ‘Sam and Dean’?”

“I’m Sam,” Sam says. “That’s Dean.”

He puts a pot on the stove and opens the beers, returning to pass them around. Dean eyes the beer suspiciously but takes it. “Why should we believe you know Castiel?”

Alaric shrugs. “’m here, aren’t I?” Dean narrows his eyes. “Fine. Castiel… he’s… very literal.”

“You could get that from the books.”

“Books?”

Dean continues to glare.

Alaric sighs, and pulls the sleeve of his sweater up. He wears a scar almost identical to Dean’s own. Castiel’s handprint. On his arm, instead of his shoulder.

Sam and Dean both take a step forward, examining the handprint. Dean feels… oddly jealous. Alaric speaks, though he looks no less nervous. “He pulled me… out, just as I was about to die. I’m a…” he flinches, a little. “I’m a hunter. He says you need hunters.”

Sam nods, and Alaric pulls his sleeve back down. His clothes fit poorly. The sweater, huge beige thing, belonged to Bobby, Dean thinks; the pants look too short for Bobby. Rufus, then.

Dean cocks his chin again. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“Yester -”

Dean looks at the ceiling and yells. “Cas, get your fluffy angel ass down here now.”

To his credit, Alaric doesn’t even flinch when Castiel appears, when the pressure in the air changes.

“The hell are you doin’, Cas, springin’ a stranger on us?” Dean demands, but Castiel isn’t paying attention. He has his eyes on Alaric, instead.

Alaric gives him half a nod, and less than half a smile. Still they know each other, that’s clear, dude didn’t make it up.

“Cas -”

Castiel raises a hand, silencing Dean, and speaks to Alaric.

“What are you thinking?”

“Huh?”

“You have an interesting expression on your face.” Castiel takes a step towards Alaric. “I am curious to know what you are thinking about.”

Alaric seems to fight a private war, over whether to answer seriously or not. Finally, he shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“You have nothing in your head? No thoughts?”

“Give him a break, Cas,” Sam protests, turning to Alaric. “Cas used to be able to read minds. He can’t anymore. It… never mind.”

Alaric looks halfway relieved and halfway like he think that maybe if he pinches himself he’ll wake up.

“You were able to exorcise the family in Wyoming?”

Dean splutters. “Yes, we were… Jesus fucking Christ, Cas. Who is this guy and why have you dumped him on us?”

“Don’t blaspheme,” Castiel warns. “My father does not like to hear blasphemy.”

Alaric finishes his beer in several long mouthfuls. “No offense, Castiel,” he says, “but fuck this. I’m needed in Mystic Falls and I’m not wanted here. So…”

Dean frowns. “Mystic Falls? Is that the town with the -”

“Vampires,” Castiel agrees. “They are a significant problem there.”

Alaric flinches, but says nothing. Castiel examines Alaric’s ankles, the inch and a half revealed because his pants are too short. “Your clothes don’t fit well,” he observes.

“It’s ok -”

There is a fluttering of feathers, and Alaric wears a helpless look on his face, and Dean almost spurts beer out of his nose. Alaric is dressed identically to Castiel, and doesn’t even look surprised. Just vaguely embarrassed and tired. “You did that again, huh?”

Dean is sick of it already. “Cas. Explain.”

“What is there to explain? We are low on hunters. Alaric Saltzman is a very fine hunter, Dean. Have some respect. He was about to die, and I plucked him from the grip of the mortal coil in time to save his life, and give him some purpose. So I ask you again: what is there to explain?”

“Why did you bring him here?”

Castiel shakes his head. “Where would you have had me bring him? I have not yet arranged transportation for him. And he has a lot to learn.”

“A ‘fine hunter’ with a lot to learn?” But he’s still thinking about the trenchcoat, the poorly knotted tie.

Alaric finally starts to react. “I’ve killed dozens of vampires, dude. Doesn’t mean I know how to deal with a poltergeist. ’m going for a walk. Curry will be ready in a few minutes. Cas, you know how to find me.”

And Alaric goes straight out the front door, trenchcoat flapping ridiculously behind him.

Castiel looks murderous. “You need not be so rude, Dean.”

But Dean is still dealing with the clothes thing, and with Alaric gone, he has to say something. “Cas. You just. Did you just.”

And Sam is smiling, a great big sasquatch smile, eyes sparkling. “Cas, did you just dress him the same as you?”

Castiel frowns. “His clothing was ill-fitting,” he says again. “Dressing him like one of you would have been very strange. Now,” he says. “I’m going to find him, and bring him back here. And you’re going to teach him. Because I may not be able to read minds any more but I still have a great deal of power at my disposal.” His gaze goes darker still, and Dean’s spine aches suddenly. “And Alaric Saltzman matters.”

With a flurry of feathers, Castiel is gone, and Dean and Sam gape.

“Dude,” Sam says. “I think Cas has a crush.”

Dean can only grunt irritably and cross to the stove, to stir the curry in its pot.

 

**

 

Alaric has been walking less than twenty minutes when he hears feathers, and shakes his head. “I don’t belong here, Castiel. I belong in Mystic Falls.”

“You can call me Cas,” Castiel answers, falling into step behind him, reaching for his elbow. “Alaric. You can’t go to Mystic Falls.”

“Why -”

Castiel places two fingers on his forehead, and after a flash of white, Alaric sees himself, unstoppable unkillable vampire, dead in Damon’s arms. Alaric shudders, and stumbles, and Castiel puts his arms out to stop him from falling.

“Shh,” he says. “I would prefer not to have had to show you that. Still perhaps it is better that you have seen.” He pulls Alaric close, wraps his arms around him.

It’s a little like, and nothing like, being held by Damon; Castiel is so strong. Alaric lets his forehead rest against Castiel’s shoulder, trying not to focus on the way Castiel strokes the short hairs on the nape of his neck. Castiel is warm, and feels intensely real under Alaric’s hands, solid and muscled, if slight. This should be awkward. This should be, at least, a little awkward. It’s not awkward: It is comfort needed and offered and received, and Alaric supposes that when they’re not being badass warriors for Heaven and humanity maybe comfort is their job, too. So Alaric lets himself be comforted.

“I really can’t go back,” he says.

Castiel hesitates, and nods. “You really can’t.”

“I don’t want to stay here,” Alaric adds, and he tells himself he is pulling away, out of Castiel’s arms, but he is not; in fact, he notes with alarm, one hand has settled against the small of Castiel’s back. Even more alarming is the sensation of feathers, and the realization that though he cannot see them, Castiel’s wings have wrapped around them both.

This should be frightening. It is not.

“I didn’t give you a choice,” Castiel says, and his lips are so close to Alaric’s ear that Alaric can feel the tiny puffs of warm breath. “I should have.”

“A choice?”

“My father gave you free will,” Castiel says, nodding. The wings, still unseen, settle more snugly around their bodies. “I should have asked, before I pulled you out. I can’t send you back to Mystic Falls. But I can send you to heaven.”

Alaric doesn’t move; he’s too warm, wrapped in wings, wearing a trenchcoat that probably doesn’t exist, in any conventional sense of the word. He shouldn’t press his hand harder against Castiel’s immovable back. He shouldn’t feel so calm, in the arms of a being so strange. He shouldn’t do any of that.

He does it, anyway.

Heaven. “What’s it like up there?”

“You can’t know until you get there,” Castiel murmurs. “Alaric. Could you walk away from the fight?”

“What fight?”

Castiel says nothing, still just teasing the hair at the back of Alaric’s neck.

“No,” Alaric says. “I suppose I couldn’t.”

Castiel pulls his wings back, and Alaric feels suddenly exposed. Castiel withdraws his arms, too, slowly, and Alaric feels himself shocked awake again. He takes a step back, and out of Castiel’s space. “Let’s just go back. Can’t guarantee I won’t punch Dean, though.”

Castiel shrugs, falling into step again as they return to the cabin. “I can’t guarantee Sam and I won’t enjoy that, a little,” he says. “Dean does need to be punched, occasionally. It assists in keeping him in line.”

Back in the cabin, Dean opens Alaric another beer. “Sorry, man. Hunters don’t tend to trust other hunters. If Cas says you’re okay, you’re okay.”

Alaric takes the beer, and a bowl of curry from Sam, and they all sit down to talk.

 

**

 

Alaric feels cold, and it’s not a normal cold; it’s the cold of having had wings wrapped tight around him, and then gone again. He can almost feel them if he lets himself.

It doesn’t make sleeping any easier.

 

**

 

Three nights later, Alaric is trying to sleep on a camp cot in the basement. Sam and Dean are in the matching cots in the bedroom. They have had no trouble sleeping and both are now softly snoring. The sound barely permeates the room but Alaric finds himself listening for it.

Alaric can’t sleep.

The Winchester brothers took him out the day before, just crossing the state line into North Dakota, and Alaric did his first salt and burn. He suspects Sam and Dean were pleasantly surprised. They slept the night in the nastiest motel Alaric had ever seen. In the morning, Sam had eaten a bowl of porridge and Dean and Alaric ate a huge cooked breakfast with five kinds of meat and plenty of toast and yeah, there had been a camaraderie about it; he suspects they were impressed by the fact he hadn’t started screaming when the ghost of a farmer wielding a blood-stained pitchfork had come at them. Dean had taught him to pack salt rounds when they got back to Montana.

And now it has all caught up to him and it feels like a night years ago, after Alaric had killed his first vampires and the adrenalin had eventually worn off. His heart is beating in his mouth.

There is a sudden shift in the weight distribution on the mattress. When Alaric opens his eyes, Castiel is sitting on the bed. Alaric sits up. “Castiel?” Alaric rubs his eyes.

“I told you you could call me Cas.”

“Sorry. Cas. What are you…” Castiel passes him a bottle of whiskey. “Thanks,” Alaric says. Unscrewing the top, taking a long pull.

Castiel looks terrible. His trenchcoat is splattered with blood, and torn in places. He looks mournfully at Alaric.

“The fuck happened to you?” Alaric asks.

Castiel shakes his head. “The usual. War.”

Alaric takes another sip of the whiskey. “I thought… Dean and Sam told me the war was over.”

“There’s always a war, Alaric.”

“You can call me Ric.”

Castiel tips his head. “Alaric suits you.”

Alaric shifts on the bed until he can sit up a little, rest against the wall. Painfully aware of his naked chest, suddenly, and that shouldn’t be such a big deal, but somehow it is. He passes the bottle back to Castiel, who takes a mouthful.

“Cas?”

Castiel turns again, and meets Alaric’s gaze, slower this time. The minimal light provided by the moon glowing through the narrow windows at the tops of the walls robs Castiel’s eyes of their blue, leaving them just dark and sad and… yes, beautiful.

“Are you alright?”

Castiel turns away again. “Sometimes,” he says.

He’s an angel. Alaric is reasonably sure they don’t have sexual urges or inappropriate thoughts or any of that and also reasonably sure he can keep his own considerable urges in check. He takes the bottle from Castiel and puts the lid back on it, placing it on the floor by the side of the bed. He pulls on Castiel’s sleeve. “Come on,” he says.

It seems to be what Castiel was hoping for. He kicks off his shoes, removes his trenchcoat and jacket and belt. Even his tie. Wordlessly he slots himself between Alaric and the wall, nestling in until he is comfortable. Without hesitation he throws an arm across Alaric’s chest, resting it on Alaric’s arm, over the handprint there.

The handprint warms, giving Alaric a safe, sleepy feeling. His eyelids begin to droop.

Alaric shouldn’t pull Castiel closer, settle his hand in the hollow of Castiel’s back, let his thumb shift over Castiel’s warm skin there. “What would, ah…” He swallows. “What would your father say if he saw us like this?”

“I don’t know if he even exists, any more,” Castiel shrugs. “But he doesn’t care about sexual orientation. And he insists we love humans above each other, and above Him.”

Alaric’s heart stutters. “Sexual orientation?”

“Your body warms in my presence, Alaric Saltzman. Sometimes up to two degrees, before you become accustomed to me again. And your pupils dilate.” His hand closes over the handprin. Gentle, affectionate. “These are both common physical manifestations of attraction. You should go to sleep.”

Alaric takes a long moment to process this. “Okay. Goodnight, Cas,” he says, and yes, with a warm body against his own, Alaric thinks he will fall asleep relatively quickly.

When he is moments from that the world darkens a touch. A cloud over the moon, perhaps. But no; it’s a wing, reaching across Alaric’s body, tucking just beneath him. Securing him. “Cas?”

“Is it uncomfortable?”

“No.”

“Then sleep. Please.”

Alaric sleeps.

 

**

 

In the morning, Castiel is gone, and the cot feels too big for Alaric, though it really, really isn’t. He pulls on the worn suit pants he was wearing the day before – at least they fit – and drags himself up the stairs to grunt at Sam and Dean, who are packing their bags.

“We have to go,” Dean says.

“Don’t suppose I can help?”

Dean shakes his head. “This is, uh, family stuff. A friend of our dad’s. Another hunter. He’d be pretty twitchy if we brought anyone else.” Dean looks guilty, but not particularly disappointed to be getting away from Alaric for a while. Sam looks irritated.

Alaric nods. “Well. I’ll, uh, do some laundry and polish the silver ware.”

“You do that.” Dean pulls the door open. “Someone’s here,” he says, pulling a gun from it’s holster on his hip.

Alaric lifts a silver knife he was carefully sharpening the night before and follows Sam and Dean outside. What he sees makes his heart jump into his throat.

“That’s my truck,” he says.

Dean nods. “Cas must have brought it for you.”

“No. I mean.” Alaric shakes his head. “This truck is a burned out shell in the garbage dump thirty miles outside Mystic Falls.”

“I retrieved it.”

Alaric jumps because Castiel’s voice is right in his ear. “Retrieved it? From where?”

Castiel cocks his head. “Roughly… August.”

Alaric takes a cautious step forward. “August?”

“Not long before it was burned by the corporeal ghost you knew as Vicki Donovan. That seemed to be a good place to retrieve it from. It had just been serviced. And I didn’t so much retrieve it as copy it.”

August?

“I was… August?”

Alaric opens the back. August means all sorts of great things. August means he was living out of this truck. There are two bags full of clothing in the back. Alaric could cry. He opens a bag. Sam laughs.

“You’ll be missing the trenchcoat before you know it,” he says.

Alaric grins. “If I do, I’m sure Cas can conjure me a new one,” he promises. “Can’t you, Cas?”

Castiel agrees with a nod.

Alaric drops the bags and pulls up the baseboard of the trunk. “Awesome. Two crossbows. Dozens of stakes -”

“You can’t kill a vampire with a stake,” Dean splutters.

“Yes, you can,” Alaric and Castiel say at once.

Castiel explains. “Parts of this country have a different type of vampire. They can’t go out in sunlight and they have teeth that are quite different. They are not the creations of Eve,” he goes on. “They are all descended from a single family of five siblings. And they can be killed with stakes.”

Alaric doesn’t want him to go on, and maybe Castiel senses it, because he stops. Dean and Sam share a look.

“Thanks, Cas,” Alaric says, and closes the trunk again.

Dean and Sam drive away in the Impala. Castiel and Alaric watch them go, and Castiel lifts one of the bags, carrying it inside. Alaric is rapidly calculating what could be inside them; quite a lot, he suspects, since in August he was dividing his time roughly between the loft, the Gilbert house, and the boarding house. Maybe even a pair of shoes that are a bit more comfortable than the lace-up court shoes Cas… provided.

Still, the bags can wait.

Alaric takes ground coffee from the freezer. He bought it yesterday in a proper supermarket. Along with a large stovetop espresso maker because frankly, cowboy coffee is cool, but he needs something a little stronger. Castiel stands and watches him fill the filter with grounds, silent. Hands tucked in the pockets of the ever-present trenchcoat. Wings not in evidence. Alaric turns the stove on and washes two mugs in the sink.

“Coffee?”

“I do not require sustenance of any kind,” Castiel says. “Including liquids.”

“You enjoy your whiskey.”

Castiel nods. “That is true. Yes. I will have some coffee.” He sits on a tall, rickety stool, there at the kitchen counter. Trenchcoat tucked neatly beneath him. The coffee bubbles away on the stove.

“Listen, Cas, about last night…” Truth be told Alaric isn’t sure what he is planning to say. “I wasn’t… I mean, I don’t. I wasn’t trying to.”

“You will need to add a verb, and probably an object, in order for me to successfully parse that sentence.”

Of course. “It’s just transference. I know that.” Damon, Castiel. Immortal, beautiful. And Damon so far away, and with a memory of Alaric dying in his arms.

Castiel tips his head to the side. “That one requires an object.”

Alaric shakes his head. “Don’t make me say it.”

Castiel agrees readily. “Certainly. I will do my best. What should I not make you say?”

He’s impossible.

Alaric shakes his head, and the coffee is ready. So he pours it into two mugs. He sits alongside Castiel at the bench, there, tracing knife marks. There is a curious arrangement of dots in a rough star shape and Alaric finds he can set the fingers of his left hand against the pattern.

“A habit of Rufus’s,” Castiel says, drawing a knife. “He…” and Castiel begins to create the patterns over Alaric’s hand, slowly. Speeding up. “He was very skilled with a knife. He practiced this for hours.” Castiel speeds up, and then again, until the knife is a blur, piercing the wood between Alaric’s fingers.

Alaric’s heart begins to race.

“Are you afraid?” Castiel asks, pulling the knife away.

“No,” Alaric says. He meets Castiel’s eyes. Bright mid blue, so open and trusting. So different to Damon’s. Maybe it’s not transference.

Castiel finishes his coffee, and climbs down from the stool. “I have to go.” And he just goes, the flurry of feathers and the smell of something ancient barely disturbing the air.

Alaric drives into town to do laundry. It’s an hour there and an hour back but the washing machine in the basement has a handle on it to help you wring the water out of the clothing and, no thanks. So Alaric drives into town. He buys a couple of books in the newsagent and a few bottles of bourbon at a liquor store. Breakfast supplies and socks (the one thing that doesn’t appear to have been in his bag at the point where Castiel duplicated the truck).

He’s glad at least for the unreasonable supply of cash he’d been carrying around at the time though it occurs to him that at some stage he should find out how the Winchesters make their money. Although, to be fair, he’s not entirely sure he wants to know.

Once the clothes are dry and folded and back in the bags, Alaric finds a bar. He’s not planning to get drunk; just wants to be around people. He orders a beer, and a woman sits beside him, griping at the bartender. She’s short and pretty with curly red hair, freckles.

It’s a familiar scene, and one Alaric finds comforting.

“They cancelled escrow. They heard about the incidents in the house, and they cancelled the sale. That thing’s gonna be an albatross around my neck for the rest of my career,” she splutters.

The bartender nods. “No way I’d live there,” he admits. Long face on him, and a hundred years old if he’s a day.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” the woman insists.

At this, Alaric’s ears prick up. “You, ah, trying to sell a haunted house?”

“Allegedly haunted,” she insists. “It’s rubbish, of course.”

“I know a little about ghosts.” Alaric winces. He sounds ridiculous. “I might be able to help.”

“Thanks, buddy. I’ve had mediums in there and all sorts. A woman who did a ritual of some sort. She burned incense all over the house and insisted it was clean, afterwards. I’ve thrown good money after bad at the problem. I’m done.” She throws back a shot of tequila and indicates she wants another.

“I didn’t say anything about money.” Alaric wipes condensation off his glass with the blade of his hand. “Just, I might be able to help.”

The woman narrows her eyes. “You a friend of that Rufus fellow? Lives out off the highway?”

Alaric hesitates. “Friends of friends.”

She stares for several seconds longer. “Okay,” she says. “Follow me while I get you the keys.”

In the truck, Alaric reads through a file that details the life and death of the woman purportedly haunting the house. She was in her twenties, when she died, in 1998, and had barely been seen by anyone since high school. She cared for an elderly father and rarely left the house except to buy groceries. Her death had been something of a mystery; she and her father had fallen down the stairs, together, apparently, but there were whispers. Her father died in hospital without waking up to give a statement, the inconsiderate fucker.

Once Alaric is standing in front of the house, he starts to have his regrets. Even from the outside the place looks haunted. Despite a fresh coat of paint. The angles look all wrong. The windows on the upper floor and the lower floor are arranged in such a way that the house appears to be grimacing.

Alaric has a shotgun full of rock salt in his right hand and a shopping bag in his left. The sun is going down, and this is starting to seem like a stupid idea.

Feeling foolish, Alaric looks up. He hasn’t prayed since he was a kid, never thought anyone was listening. “Uh, Castiel, if you can hear -”

There is a tumble of feathers, and Castiel’s face is about four inches from Alaric’s.

“Hello, Alaric Saltzman,” he says. “I can’t imagine what you think you are doing here, without backup, in front of a house which has a poltergeist in it.”

He is close enough that Alaric could lean and kiss him, if he had the urge. Or rather, if he was less able to resist the urge.

“Starting to wonder myself,” he agrees. Sheepish. “Especially since the punch line in the file on this one is that she was cremated. And I don’t have an EMF meter, or…”

Castiel nods, and remains standing where he is, inches from Alaric’s face. “You have an EMF meter now.”

“You carry one with you?”

“I can very effectively measure EMF myself.” Castiel grimaces. “But Dean likes his toys, so I stay quiet.”

Alaric swallows. “Has anyone ever talked to you about personal space?”

Castiel nods. “Dean.”

“Did you pay attention?”

Castiel smiles, a little. “I am not as close to you now as I was last night.”

“Yet somehow it’s more confusing like this.” Alaric takes a step back. “Look. I have no idea what…”

“There are personal remains in that house,” Castiel interrupts. “Almost certainly blood. You have salt? Fuel?”

Alaric lifts the small shopping bag. “Yeah.”

Castiel tips his head towards the door, and Alaric unlocks it, and they go inside.

Inside, it _looks_ less haunted. The modern kitchen gleams. Alaric suspects that the realtor has done what she can to make it a more attractive prospect for a home. But it’s creepy. Alaric has to ask himself; is it creepy because it’s haunted, or does it seem creepy because he has heard it’s haunted? Impossible to say; the air in here is cold, very cold, and that doesn’t help, but surely Castiel can tell. Alaric looks at him now.

“Nothing here right now,” Castiel says. “Let’s look further.”

Downstairs is two large living areas and a kitchen and dining room combination. Everything looks very freshly painted and clean, the fitting gleaming in the low light. You can step from the larger living area out onto a grand verandah overlooking the forest.

“Pretty,” Alaric says.

“Indeed,” Castiel agrees, from a place roughly three inches behind Alaric. “Perhaps without the violent spirit inhabiting the upper floor, a family can find happiness here.”

Sometimes, Alaric suspects Castiel of sarcasm, but he can never be sure.

“How do you know it’s on the upper floor?”

Right on cue, a low moan begins to build; wind through a small gap, maybe, too low and mournful for a human voice. Alaric checks his rifle is loaded, and heads for the stairs. Castiel follows close behind.

“Yes. That’s how. I sensed that a few moments earlier. Wait, Alaric.” Alaric pauses, looking back for a moment at Castiel, and a door from a room just out of sight blows off it’s hinges, missing them by a foot. “You may walk through now.”

Alaric gives Castiel an incredulous look. “Angels are hard to hurt, right? Warriors of God and all that?”

Castiel nods, a look of something approaching pride on his face. “We are very strong indeed.”

“Then maybe you want to go first? I’m, you know, breakable.”

Castiel beams, or does something quite like that, anyway. Perhaps it’s a small smile. He steps in front of Alaric and turns to the left. The sounds still seems to be coming from above them.

“There must be an attic,” Alaric says. “We should find a way up there…” Castiel is walking into a room that no longer has a door. The racket is definitely above them, now, and getting more ferocious. Above a darker patch of carpet, perhaps where the bed would usually be, is a trap door. Castiel reaches up to pull on the rope and a set of steps descends suddenly, reaching almost to the ground, bringing with it dirt and dust and screaming.

Alaric is afraid. He is afraid like he hasn’t been since the first time he hunted a vampire, stake held in a shaking hand. He reminds himself he prevailed then, too, and follows Castiel up the stairs.

It’s like a whirlwind of dust and screams, when they climb up into the attic. Alaric can’t see anything _but_ the dust, illuminated by the moon outside the window. He fumbles for his flashlight but cannot get it into his hand.

“Cas…” he starts, but Castiel doesn’t seem to hear him. “Cas, what do…”

And then there is an enormous pressure against Alaric’s chest, and he is being propelled towards a free-standing wardrobe on the far side of the room. It opens in time for him to be thrown inside. His teeth bite through his lower lip, and he tastes his own blood; a gash on his cheek is far deeper, and freely bleeding. He begins to pound on the door, but knows Castiel would be pulling him out, if he was able. Alaric is a crumpled heap on the base of the wardrobe, one knee almost in his face, the other leg twisted cruelly beneath him.

He makes a sad attempt to get to his feet, and manages only to get to his knees. Still, at last, Alaric is able to get a grip on the flashlight and turn it on, barely hearing Castiel’s shouts, some language he is not able to recognize.

With light, Alaric instantly finds the source of the blood.

It’s on the inside of the wardrobe door, caught in the gouges made by frightened fingers. As his eyes travel up the back of the door the gouges get deeper, and Alaric finally understands.

She was locked in here, as a punishment. It started when she was small – perhaps six or seven years old – and continued as she got older, and taller, and stronger. When Alaric manages a hunched standing position, he finds fingernails trapped in the grain of the wood.

“Cas,” he calls. “The wardrobe door –”

And then Castiel’s face is there, and the door is torn from its hinges, and the chaos in the room is worse than ever. There is a flutter of wings and Alaric is alone.

The woman’s face is terrifying but now that Alaric knows, he is able to feel a degree of pity; this is not who she was; it is what has been made of her.

Of course, as she bares the teeth in her translucent face and runs at Alaric, who is still trapped in the wardrobe, he can’t feel _very_ sorry for her. He can’t reach the shotgun, either, can only bring his arms up to cover his face –

– and marvel when with one final scream, she dematerializes.

Alaric’s eyes are closed hard against the terror, but when he opens them, the room is utterly still. The noise is all gone. It even feels a little warmer.

“Alaric?” comes a voice. Alaric crosses to one of the tiny attic windows. Down in the back yard Castiel has the wardrobe door aflame. “You may come down, if you wish.”

Alaric slumps. “Be right there,” he says, too quiet for a human’s ears. Castiel nods sharply, and watches the wood burn.

 

**

 

They are quiet on the drive back to the cabin. The night is dark. Only the streetlights on exits and their own headlights illuminate anything at all. When Alaric chooses music – he needs something to drown the ringing in his ears from those terrible screams – Castiel mumbles something.

“A little louder, Cas,” Alaric says.

“It’s not that I mind Bon Jovi and Metallica, so very much,” Castiel admits, as if it is something shameful, “but this is a very pleasant change.”

“Dean, I take it,” Alaric asks, filing this away for later reference. He realizes he is anticipating doing this again, hunting with Castiel. The thought makes him shiver, and he casts a glance over Castiel’s face, the long eyelashes, the pouting curve of his lip.

“Are you hungry?” Castiel asks.

“Starving.”

“Do you like cheeseburgers?”

“Everyone likes cheeseburgers,” Alaric says. “Especially bacon ones.”

Castiel nods. “I will see you at the cabin,” he says, and the truck fills with the sound of feathers. Alaric is somehow able not to crash, and makes a mental note to discourage Castiel from disappearing from a moving vehicle.

Oh, God, and also from appearing in one. Alaric shakes his head.

By the time he arrives at the cabin Castiel is inside, looking very pleased with himself, clutching at a large brown paper bag with grease stains on the bottom.

“I got them in Minneapolis,” he says, in answer to a question Alaric hasn’t asked. Alaric closes the door, smiling. “Bacon cheeseburgers and curly fries. If you eat too many of the fries you will die of congestive heart failure, Sam says, but Dean doesn’t agree. Still I got the medium size. And chunky monkey ice cream. That’s in the freezer. I didn’t want it to get warm.”

“How did you know I…”

Castiel looks like a deer caught in headlights, for a moment. “I… saw you, in Mystic Falls. I watched you. A little. When I saw that circumstances conspired. You have spent time in Purgatory, Alaric Saltzman.” Castiel busies himself with the bag. “Such things do not escape our notice.”

Castiel looks as if he’s afraid he is about to be on the receiving end of a tirade.

Alaric shakes his head. “No. It’s okay. I haven’t had chunky monkey in… a long time.”

Castiel looks pleased. He puts the burgers in their greasy wrappings on the counter, and looks up, meeting Alaric’s eyes for the first time since the house.

“You’re bleeding,” he says, with a look of something like horror on his face.

With the adrenalin wearing off, Alaric has to admit he’s in a reasonable amount of pain, as well. Though he’s not bleeding. Not any more. The cut on his cheek is caked in dry blood and his lip, though grossly swollen, didn’t bleed much to start with. The hip and knee of his tortured leg feel stiff and sore.

“Occupational hazard, I guess,” he says, and his voice sounds thick. “Cuts and bruises.”

Castiel takes a step forward, a second, and reaches for Alaric’s face. Cups Alaric’s cheek in his hand. It feels so like an expression of affection that Alaric has to fight the temptation to shift into Castiel’s arms, but he is suddenly overwhelmed by a flash of white light, and finds his eyes closing against it.

When Castiel’s hand is gone, so is all the pain. Alaric reaches for his cheek, and it is quite healed.

“Faster than vampire blood,” he says, as Castiel withdraws his hand.

“And less intoxicating,” Castiel agrees, but he looks rueful, turning to take a seat at a tall stool to eat his cheeseburger. “I got these from Dean’s favorite diner,” he says, though Alaric has guessed this.

Alaric has participated in this delicate dance before. He knows the right questions to ask. Problem is the questions are the ones you ask of a human you’ve met in a bar, or, for fuck’s sake, a vampire you’ve come to town to kill; not a sort-of maybe partly-fallen angel with beautiful sad eyes and no idea about personal space. Who likes you dressed like partners in a buddy cop drama and procured (bought? Stole? Whatever) your favorite ice cream from several states away because he’s been watching long enough to know that’s what you like.

Alaric shakes his head because whether or not it’s okay for angels to imagine humans naked, he’s almost certain humans        shouldn’t be doing the same about angels. Castiel can’t even be sexually aware, not really, unless he is, and thank God the burger is good; the bacon is thick-cut, the cheese is real Jack and the beef is well-seasoned. It’s almost enough to get Alaric’s mind off the curve of Castiel’s mouth. “I can see why Dean likes them,” Alaric says.

Castiel shrugs, and continues to eat, and Alaric keeps watching his fascinating face, the way his eyes dart around the room and back to the burger, thinking about the reverent way he pronounces Dean’s name, when he says it… Alaric is tired, and grouchy, and got attacked by a poltergeist, so he just asks.

“You and Dean…?”

Castiel tenses, and shakes his head. “He has no interest in a physical relationship. He deems it unsavory.”

Alaric tears his eyes away and forces his hands to reach for curly fries. “But you…”

Castiel tenses further, squinting at the last bite of burger before putting it in his mouth, chewing rapidly, and swallowing. Alaric watches Castiel’s throat work over his meal.

“Dean and I are bonded. Perhaps I mistook that for something else. Sensations on earth are… so overwhelming. Perhaps I mistook my feelings for something more.”

Alaric wipes his mouth with a napkin. “Sounds like Dean talking, and you just parroting back.” He reaches for his beer, cold bottle sweating condensation, and takes a long mouthful. “What do you mean by ‘bonded’?”

“He wears a handprint like yours.” Castiel frowns, and stares at a curly fry. “I pulled him out of Hell. He is… was… my assignment.”

Alaric drinks again. “Assignment. Am I… an assignment?”

Castiel half turns on his stool, angling his body toward Alaric’s, and swallows. “No. You were my decision,” he says, seriously, and it’s enough; swept up in a wave of bright silver affection Alaric pulls at the collar of Castiel’s trenchcoat, pulls him in, pulls him close. He kisses Castiel’s mouth, feeling the fine stubble scratch against his own. Castiel is enthusiastic, but clearly unpracticed, all messy want, reaching for Alaric’s waist, and the stools have become impractical so they climb down off them.

Alaric feels drugged, and the part of him that keeps reminding him this is almost certainly the sort of thing you can go to Hell for – corrupting an angel, that’s gotta be much worse than creating graven images of false idols, surely – keeps being pushed aside in favor of noticing that Castiel’s eyes are still open, that he is making pleased sounds in his throat, that he is stepping Alaric back towards the bench, pressing into him as if they could merge their cells and, well, Castiel is an angel. Maybe they can, with him steering. Castiel doesn’t seem to know what he wants, only that he wants, and Alaric’s forebrain is still sending contradictory stop-don’t-yes-God-but messages. Castiel is one thousand times stronger than his relatively slight form suggests, and his fingers seem to be trying to get at Alaric’s skin directly through his clothing, unable to work out how to find the lower edges and snake their way inside.

He smells, and tastes, like bacon cheeseburgers, and maybe he is the first angel in the history of everything to taste that way.

Castiel’s tongue snakes its way between Alaric’s lips and he finds a rhythm, somehow, seems to learn quickly, and Alaric feels his sleepy cock begin to wake, looking up to see what’s going on, and then stand at attention, quickly finding its place alongside Castiel’s, their hips nudging together, slotting together like lost pieces of a puzzle.

Oh, God, this is just wrong. Alaric presses his hands against Castiel’s chest and pulls his face away.

“Cas… this is just… wrong,” he says, though his hips aren’t cooperating yet, still nudging at Castiel’s, helpless against lust. “You’re an angel and…”

Castiel looks angry. “You want this.” He presses closer again, kisses Alaric’s jaw, his throat, while Alaric rolls his head back helplessly to let him, hand on the back of Castiel’s neck, mind flashing forward to all the different ways he wants this, but it’s just… Castiel is an angel. And doubtless a virgin, since this is his first extended stay on earth, and truth be told, until he’s felt Castiel’s insistent erection Alaric had been wondering if he was maybe entirely unequipped for this sort of thing. “You do. You want this.” Castiel shifts so his thigh settles between Alaric’s legs, friction building between them. “Don’t pretend you don’t. Humans don’t lie well. Not to each other, nor to themselves.”

Yes, he’s well-equipped. Doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing.

Not that Alaric can talk, really, since he appears to be simultaneously explaining that this has to stop and also unbuckling Castiel’s belt, and wondering what’s more practical, one of the small camp beds, or the couch, or maybe he should just grab a few pillows and pull Castiel down to the floor with him, and fuck, no, this has to stop.

He executes a deft maneuver to escape Castiel’s arms, and takes several steps away. It seems to take Castiel a moment to understand what has happened. He turns towards Alaric with a look of confusion, and some degree of irritation. “You started it,” he says, petulant, all too human.

Maybe it’s that, sounding so human and pissed off and not remotely angelic. It changes the pathways in Alaric’s brain, makes the whole thing sound funny.

“You’re like, a million years old,” he says, trying not to laugh.

Castiel tips his head, sulking, which does nothing to detract from the overall look of a dude with a massive boner that will not quit. “Rather older than that, Alaric Saltzman.”

“Cas…”

“Dean would  make a snide comment about leaving me with blue balls.”

There’s that, too. “I’m not Dean.”

Castiel shrugs. “I’m not Damon.”

Alaric glances away, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Castiel is silent a few moments longer. “I enjoyed hunting with you, Alaric,” he says, and there is the sound of feathers in the room and nothing else.

 

**

 

Alaric can’t sleep.

He is exhausted, physically and mentally, and after three beers and half a bottle of bourbon and plenty of time to sitting around wondering why he feels like such an asshole he should be sleepy, as well, but he is not. He is awake and alert and pissed off.

And exhausted.

It’s cold in the basement. He could take one of the cots in the bedroom but he really doesn’t want to; they feel claimed, somehow, and worse – he doesn’t know which one Dean usually sleeps in and for unnamable reasons he doesn’t want to lie where Dean has slept, in a hollow made by his body, where Dean has snored and dreamed and breathed.

There are no crickets punctuating the silence around Alaric but it seems to mock him anyway. He readjusts the pillows beneath his head, pulls the covers up higher.

He has hung the trenchcoat from a hanger on the edge of the shelf and if he narrows his eyes, he can imagine Castiel is standing there, watching over him.

In the end he sleeps.

 

**

 

Alaric sits at the end of the bar in the Mystic Grill and feels a moment’s disorientation: he is sitting in the wrong place. Hasn’t sat at this end of the bar in a long time. He belongs down…

…down there, where Damon has just mounted a stool and hunched his shoulders.

Alaric feels odd. Why wouldn’t Damon sit by him?

There is no drink in Alaric’s hand, which is also unusual. He climbs down from his stool and takes a few slow, cautious steps towards Damon.

When he is close, he speaks. “Damon?”

Damon doesn’t look up. He’s in a mood, obviously, and Alaric takes a deep breath, runs a hand through his hair and prepares to launch into a tirade of some sort, perhaps focusing on why sulking like a five year old girl is lame.

Someone takes the stool alongside Damon, pushing past Alaric to do so, seeming not to see him, and Damon shoots them a murderous look. The man raises a hand, sorry man, sorry, and moves away, and Damon gets the attention of the bartender.

“Damon…”

Damon doesn’t look up but he obviously sees Alaric because when the bartender approaches he orders for them both. “Two,” he says, and the bartender pours two glasses of Damon’s preferred bourbon. Damon puts one in front of Alaric.

Alaric sits down. “What’s with the silent treatment?”

Damon doesn’t acknowledge him. Alaric rolls his eyes and reaches for his drink… and his fingers go right through it.

Ghost?

He reaches out until his fingers are almost touching Damon’s face, but Damon doesn’t so much as flinch. You can’t fake that. Damon should growl at him, or push his hand away. Alaric spends a long moment wondering how it is he can even sit on the stool, and Damon finishes his drink, orders another.

Alaric watches him for a while. Until he can’t anymore.

Damon drinks six glasses of bourbon, looking over occasionally at the one he ordered perhaps for Alaric, for Alaric’s memory.

It wasn’t a relationship. It wasn’t a romance. It was a mutual, grudging affection, some of the best sex of Alaric’s life. Equal intellects brought to play in the protection of Mystic Falls, some truly epic arguments (mostly about film directors, or who was going to top) and cooking. It was a friendship – one of Alaric’s favorite friendships, though he’d never admit it out loud – and a complicated friendship but Damon is old, and he’s had friends before.

Still, this is grief.

Grief turns Damon’s eyes to the glass of whiskey at his side and grief makes him keep ordering, over and over again. Alaric stops watching, just gazes at nothing and wonders whether this is a dream, or something different.

Finally, Damon reaches for Alaric’s drink, and throws it back in one.

“See ya, Ric,” he says, before climbing from his stool and stalking away.

Alaric watches him all the way to the door, where he pushes through and out into the night.

Outside, just outside, is a familiar sight. A trenchcoated, rumpled angel with an insistent cowlick and a vaguely lost, fond look on his face. Alaric goes outside, and yes, it’s Castiel; watching, waiting.

“Is this real? Or is it a dream?”

Castiel shrugs. “Perhaps it’s both,” he admits, holding Alaric’s eyes.

In the distance Damon is walking, slouching, irritated enough so that he has left a thin fog in his wake. Alaric spots him passing beneath a streetlamp on the opposite side of the road.

“Alaric,” Castiel says. “Wake.”

 

**

 

Alaric wakes, and when he does, Castiel is sitting on the bed again. Alaric sits up, rubbing his eyes. “Cas?”

“We’re not so different,” Castiel says, looking at nothing, hands clasped between his knees. It’s the most absurd thing Alaric has ever heard. He leans against the wall, dropping his hands to his sides.

“We’re pretty fucking different, Cas,” Alaric answers, but even as he says it, he can’t help wondering if it’s really true.

“Hunters,” Castiel disagrees. Rubbing his hands together. “Alone in the world. I am rejected by my brothers and sisters and you can’t be part of the lives that matter to you.” He turns, then, the moonlight falling across his face, casting long shadows of his eyelashes over his cheeks.

“Cas…”

He has absolutely nothing to follow the syllable up with, just holds Castiel’s eyes, reaching after a moment to switch on the small lamp he brought down the stairs from the bookshelf; very low light, dirty and gold, and it makes Castiel look sort of spooky-beautiful and unreal, the way he is, only more so.

Castiel is patient, says nothing, just breathes.

“Come here,” Alaric says, somehow. It’s unexpected, the way it just comes out like that. Castiel hesitates, but not for long. He shifts further down the bed, awkward, too much clothing, and just when Alaric thinks he’s going to kiss him he relaxes instead, half-curled against Alaric’s chest, head tucked under Alaric’s chin. His hands fall limply sort of half-in and half-out of his lap.

Shocked might not be the word but it’s something close to that. Alaric drapes an arm over Castiel’s shoulder, runs his fingers over Castiel’s arm. Alaric makes no comment about the strange arrangement of bodies and limbs and after a moment he realizes it’s nice, really, just to be there like that.

It’s a year, maybe ten minutes.

“This is… a lot of clothing,” Alaric murmurs against Castiel’s hair, and Castiel sits up, frowning, and nods. He drops his trenchcoat and jacket on a chair and toes off his shoes without undoing the laces; it’s such a human, lazy gesture, the irritation with fastenings, the desire to be unencumbered quickly, that it makes Alaric smile, though he doesn’t shift from his place on the bed.

The shirt comes off next and Castiel mutters over the buttons, fidgeting clumsily, and Alaric’s fingers twitch to help, but he stays where he is, watching, debating whether he’s really prepared to corrupt an angel like this.

When the shirt comes off, and there’s a t-shirt layered beneath it, Alaric has to chuckle. “You always wear so many layers?”

“Yes,” Castiel says.

“You get cold, or…?

Castiel shrugs. “Sometimes. I’m not what I was.” He stands to pull the t-shirt over his head, and Alaric finally gets the chance to drink in the sight of him; Castiel is neat and compact, but lithe; strong, well-defined abs and a snail’s trail of dark hair creeping down from his navel to his belt buckle and presumably, points south.

Castiel takes off the belt, too, slips it all the way out of the belt loops like it’s a normal night, quite calm, and unbuttons his suit pants. It’s around now that Alaric notices his own erection, nudging insistently through the slit in his boxers. Unbidden, his hand moves to wrap around the base, starting a slow stroke, rubbing his thumb over the weeping tip and down again, getting sticky, now. Still with his eyes on Castiel, who piles the pants on top of the rest of the clothes and looks at Alaric. Still unsure, not smiling. Unprepared, perhaps.

“Are you going to take your socks off?”

Castiel frowns, considering. “I don’t like it when my feet get cold.”

“I won’t let your feet get cold,” Alaric promises. He doesn’t shift from where he is; just continues the slow stroke, watching Castiel’s serious face. At last Castiel nods, and sits on the edge of the cot, removing his socks.

He looks very young and vulnerable, which is patently ridiculous.

At last Alaric leans forward.

“Come here,” he says again, pulling back the blankets, and Castiel moves to lie alongside him resting his head on Alaric’s arm, tucking himself alongside Alaric’s body, unsure where to put his hands; in the end he settles one on Alaric’s hip, and tucks the other under his own chin. “Are you… sure about…”

Castiel leans forward then, closing the distance between their bodies, kissing Alaric hard, teeth clashing, biting at Alaric’s mouth enthusiastically. He keeps his eyes open, but looks from Alaric’s eyes to the place where their mouths meet, and is he can discern something new about the process of kissing by watching closely, and Alaric wraps his arms hard around Castiel and pulls him close.

Instinct takes over; instinct tends to, in close proximity like this, hormones rushing, blood redistributing itself. Castiel wedges a leg between Alaric’s, not knowing yet exactly what it is that he’s asking for, not really knowing what he wants; but knowing, certainly, that he _wants_ , and that this friction is where it starts. Alaric snakes a hand between their bodies and Castiel mumbles in complaint at the distance it creates, until Alaric wraps his hand around Castiel’s growing erection.

And then he groans, deep and low, and mutters “yes, Alaric,” and it sounds so dirty, the way Castiel wants this so much, is bucking up and against Alaric’s hand, unable even to kiss him now – a string of saliva suspended between their lips is somehow the most debauched thing Alaric has ever seen, in combination with Castiel’s swollen, too-red mouth – and worse because, as he keeps trying to remind the fifteen percent of his brain that is still working, Castiel is an Angel. Of the Lord.

Heavenly bodies, etc.

But with Castiel rubbing his mouth helplessly against Alaric’s face, hot and wet, with Castiel still muttering parts of Alaric’s name, and some syllables of what can only be Enochian (Alaric recognizes it now, from the poltergeist in the manse, and craves the guttural, blood-soaked sound of it) and Alaric’s hand filthy with the insistent stream of pre-come Castiel is slowly leaking, Alaric is able to tell that fifteen percent of his brain to shut the fuck up and let him corrupt his angel in peace.

When Alaric takes his hand away Castiel sort of lunges, half-angry, half disappointed, And Alaric has to bite back a laugh.

“It’s okay, Cas. You won’t believe how good this feels.”

Castiel looks like he can’t quite believe anything could feel better than what he just felt but he looks seriously intrigued, too, and lets Alaric shift him until he is lying in the center of the bed with Alaric’s leg draped over him, eyes wide and on Alaric’s.

Alaric kisses him again, messy, but brief. Castiel lies like he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do, or what he’s allowed to do with his hands, like he doesn’t trust the body he’s now stuck with not to betray him. “’m gonna slow down, Cas,” Alaric says, running a hand over Castiel’s chest, pausing to tug on his nipple. Castiel is in that awkward place between stiff and squirmy, body arching into every touch, eyes slipping to the evidently novel sight of his hard and straining dick now unencumbered by the boxers Alaric has worked halfway down his legs. “It’s not a race, you know?”

Castiel looks a little murderous – Alaric casts his mind back twenty-plus years to the first time he had a hand on his dick that wasn’t his own, and how he would have felt if it had stopped so cruelly in the middle, but he’s committed, now, to this particular course of action.

“Just let me make you feel good, Cas, okay?”

The words sound wrong. But he’s teaching, in a way, and he’s determined to do it right; if he’s going to actually corrupt an angel, he’s going to make him feel so good he won’t spend the rest of his eternal life regretting the taint.

Alaric leans to kiss Castiel’s mouth again and Castiel relaxes, a little, reaching up to hold the wrist above the hand that is leaning by his neck; Alaric figures Castiel has the hang of kissing, now, just not of wanting more, because his hips are still bucking against nothing.

Gently, reverently, Alaric runs his lips and tongue over Castiel’s chest, his hand following the same approximate path, and Castiel breathes harder, losing his rhythm. When Alaric’s teeth find the hollow of Castiel’s hip, Castiel nearly yelps; “Alaric,” he says, quite loudly, but Alaric just chuckles against his flesh there, so pale and thin it’s almost translucent, while Castiel tugs desperately at his shoulder.

Alaric pulls Castiel’s boxers the rest of the way down and repositions himself between Castiel’s legs; and Castiel wears that expression again, curious and terrified and just wanting, wanting.

Carefully, with one hand pulling gently at the dark, wiry hair at the base of Castiel’s fat, weeping cock, Alaric licks a slow stripe up the vein on the underside, and is rewarded with Castiel rolling his entire body up, squinting his eyes closed, and muttering, loud but muffled, biting his lip.

When Alaric takes it further, takes the tip of Castiel’s cock in his mouth, Castiel’s face and chest flush a dark red, and Alaric realizes he doesn’t have long. Again flashing back to his teens, remembering how little control he had, Alaric takes Castiel into his mouth, pressing down hard with his tongue, hungry lips swallowing Castiel down, relaxing and opening his throat, grinning when Castiel tenses suddenly and shouts “Alaric – Alaric!”

Alaric swallows all Castiel has to offer, salt and bitter, as Castiel continues to fuck up into his mouth, seeming unable to stop. When it does end, Castiel slumps bonelessly on the bed, and when Alaric looks up, Castiel’s eyes are wide open, blue and endless. Shocked, perhaps even embarrassed.

Alaric sits up. “You did know…”

Castiel breathes through his mouth, eyes still wide, lips kiss-swollen. “I… _knew_ ,” he says, in a way that tells Alaric he had some concept of the mechanics, but not of how fucking good it felt to come.

Alaric is going to hell.

He doesn’t much care.

He shifts again, and Castiel sits up, carefully studying his rapidly softening cock, licking his lip. The cot is too small for two, especially two who are tall, and now sweaty, but Alaric lies back closest to the wall, while Castiel kicks his boxers away from the ankle they are still caught on.

He turns to meet Alaric’s eyes. “I don’t know what…”

“’s cool, Cas. One thing at a time.” And really, Alaric could use some reciprocation, hard and aching as he is, but it doesn’t seem important right now.

Castiel turns and lies carefully against Alaric’s side, crowding him. Hot, and somehow too heavy, like the experience has settled into his bones, weighted him. He nestles his face into Alaric’s neck, affectionate and grateful.

“Thank you,” he says, and it is the strangest and most sincere expression of post-coital appreciation that Alaric has ever heard. He doesn’t try not to chuckle, just drapes an arm around Castiel.

“You’re welcome.” He drums his fingers over the back of Castiel’s neck. “I’m glad you came back, Cas.”

With their legs tangled, Alaric lets his eyes close, and soon settles into a dreamless sleep.

 

**

 

Alaric wakes alone, which is sort of surprising and disappointing, though actually less awkward than the alternative. He dresses in clothes that are new, too new, but definitely his own, jeans and a t-shirt and a sweater, and he heads up the stairs.

Castiel is sitting on the little porch behind the cabin, alone, looking at the trees.

Alaric stands for few moments, and then heads outside to join him. Castiel startles for a moment, but smiles when Alaric sits down. Their eyes meet, and then they sit silently for a while, watching the trees do absolutely nothing, listening to the few brave birds. It is bitterly cold.

“I enjoyed that,” Castiel says. “That was very nice.”

Alaric nods.

“I would like to do that again. There are a number of related activities I would also like to try.”

Alaric chuckles. “Quite a way with words, Cas…”

“Thank you.”

It wasn’t intended to be a compliment but Cas is the strangest being Alaric has ever met. Alaric takes Castiel’s face in his hand, tipping it toward him. Castiel’s eyes go very wide, and bright, a terrible optimism flushing his features, and Alaric kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this a long time ago and couldn't work out how to finish. On re-reading today, I realized it was finished. I hope you enjoyed it!


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